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It is worth it, that is all that needs to be said. If you wanna be cheap and get the lesser computer equipment that will fall short sooner then go with the GTX. I have a Intel Quad Core cpu and two EVGA-8800 Ultra's in SLI, and there is not a game out there that weakens my system. The price is a bit much, but you get what you pay for. My 8800 Ultra's are great. My buddy has a rig running two 8800 GTX's and we benchmarked them using the same version of 3DMARK and my system chewed up the benchmarks while his suffered and choked a bit across the finish line. Go with the Ultra 8800. Reply

The ONLY reason to step-up to this card is if you utilise EVERY one of your expansion slots. The reason being the EVGA card has a backplate which, in most cases, blocks the adjacent slot so it is essentially a 3 slot cooler for all intents and purposes.

The Ultra will undoubtedly overclock better but then you void that nice EVGA lifetime warranty :(

So youre basically banking on some magic driver to come along that may take advantage of the new bios on the card, but that's a big "if"

I was on the fence for awhile until I saw that my EVGA card does better in 1600x1200 (I use 1680x1050) so that cemented my decision to stay away. It would be cool to own such a card, just because I can, but then I realized that step-up cost would pay for an HD-DVD add-on for my 360 :)

I forgot to mention, don't get an Ultra or hold out on stepping up in the hopes you will be able to step-up to one of those pre-overclocked Ultras that seem to be around the corner. As anyone who tried to step-up to an ACS3 edition 8800 GTX knows, EVGA will not allow it, the program applies to reference spec'd cards ONLY, no exceptions. Reply

I have a pair of 8800 GTXs already and both can be overclocked to 650MHz on the core and 2.1GHz on the memory, but for a boost of three frames per second or so in 2560x1600 it's pointless.

These cards are only ideal for those who don't have an 8800GTX and even then, you might consider the 8800 GTS because it can basically run anything in 1920x1200 and below quite well. I can often game in 2560x1600 with SLi disabled and all settings maxed. The 8800GTX is a very powerful card. Reply

There are 2 reasons why nvidia produced this card:
1. Ati new flag ship - this card is supposed to keep the crown on nvidia side and give
nvidia the upper hand VS Ati , it's the same story as 7800 GTX 512 it's a stepping
stone in the road map between 8800 --> 8900
2. price fixing between nvidia and ati : if nvidia ultra costs 830$ and Ati's new flag
ship has the same performance why sould it cost less , this those company's are
creating a new price level for ultra/premium cards Reply

Almost everything significant to be said about the 8800 Ultra has already be said; it looks very much like this card's more for the clueless but loaded folks who want it as much as they'd want a Bugatti Veyron to show off to their pals.

Even with the supposedly enhanced overclocking headroom, it's unlikely that it'd be able to justify the massive premium - it can only reach 684 MHz core while remaining stable, which is certainly not $300's worth more than the Foxconn's 630 or EVA's 626. That it can reach even higher (702/1728 as Anandtech found) is not much use since, to maintain stability, one would have to spend even more on top of the large premium to replace the stock HSF with a better one - it would have been a little different if, for example, the extra money gives us a superb cooler that allows us to reach 700 (and stay there) out of the box.

Right now there's the 8500, 8600 and 8800. There's a very conspicuous and inviting hole for an 8700 with 64 SPs, 12/16 ROPs and maybe 550/1190/1000 MHz clocks at the $250 mark. A pretty sweet spot, imho. Nvidia really ought to have something there... or perhaps that's an ace in the hole to be pulled out depending on how AMD's lineup performs. Besides that, hopefully Nvidia manages to iron out any kinks in the transition to 65nm fast, as these GPUs could sure use the lower TDPs. On the other side of the fence, hope AMD bucks up soon... they've dropped the ball quite a bit lately and R600's already a whole 6 months behind the 8800. Reply

Nvidia is no doubt just trolling to find gullible fools with more money than technical knowledge. Only a fool would cough up this kind of money for a video card. Don't be surprised if these outrageously over-priced cards become symbols of cluelessness for the well healed but technically challenged fanboys. There's a sucker born every second.

Why is everyone whining about this card? I mean, you realize that NVIDIA is in the business of making money, right? You also realize that no one from NVIDIA will come to your home and hold a gun to your head and make you buy it, right? Wow, a company that wants to make money is greedy! Too funny.

In actuality, they are probably just looking for an identity and want to go more upscale. Is it worth it? Maybe to someone, and now they have the choice. High end CPUs have always been a bargain for some uses, even though they cost a lot more and offer only a few percentages more performance. The reason is simple, for some companies the cost for employees is so much higher than the cost of equipment, even a $1000 is trivial if it makes people more productive or gets answers faster. I have been in these situations before, and they aren't willing to overclock so they buy the best and don't really care about the cost. I'm just not sure if a video card applies to many of these situations, since shooting space aliens isn't a viable business strategy. But there are probably some pursuits that benefit from this besides kiddies and their games. For them, this might make sense.

Comparing an overclocked card with a stock, pre-production card is kind of silly too. I mean, it's fine for the review, but when people extrapolate from this that they should get other card and overclock it, they ignore that this new card might overclock better, so again, it's not a matter of getting the same thing for less, but of getting less performance for less.

AMD probably realizes the kiddie market is too small like Intel has and prefer to go with better mainstream products. They don't need to be in that business anymore, since it's a much bigger company and they can expand in different, more meaningful ways (like Fusion). NVIDIA has big problems, the merger between AMD and ATI has made their life a whole lot more difficult in that chipset market, and I don't know anyone with an IQ over 70 that buys a chipset from a penny-ante company like NVIDIA when they can buy a real Intel chipset for their Intel processors. Intel chipsets have always been the best, if not in performance then in reliability and support.

So, NVIDIA is looking like the odd man out, especially with IGPs slowly creeping up. Maybe they need to reinvent themselves as a high end company, as ATI goes a bit more mainstream. Good luck to them, I'll be surprised if they're not belly up in a few years, or really bought by another company, especially if processors continue to gain GPU functions as seems the current path.

Does anyone else think it's a little funny how everything goes back to the way things were? I mean, there are math coprocessors again! Now, it seems like all the graphical stuff will be done by the processor again pretty soonb (as in the days of the dumb frame buffer video cards). I wonder when the DOS prompt will be the interface for the next generation operating system. Google isn't that far from it, although it's not an OS. Reply

quote:Comparing an overclocked card with a stock, pre-production card is kind of silly too. I mean, it's fine for the review, but when people extrapolate from this that they should get other card and overclock it, they ignore that this new card might overclock better, so again, it's not a matter of getting the same thing for less, but of getting less performance for less.

You can look at it like an overclocked card, but the fact is that the EVGA card we tested and stock 8800 Ultra cards compete on the same level. This isn't a card we bought and then overclocked, this is a retail product that EVGA sells at higher performance than stock 8800 GTX hardware. It's got a lifetime warranty at the clock speeds they set at the factory. As will their stock 8800 Ultra card which won't perform any better.

I understand the argument that comparing the 8800 Ultra to an 8800 GTX that we overclocked ourselves is silly. But people that don't want to overclock their hardware who are in the market for a high end graphics card will only see a negligible performance difference with a huge price gap between EVGA's 8800 GTX KO ACS3 and any stock 8800 Ultra. It absolutely is a matter of getting the same thing for less.

Overclockers may see some value in the 8800 Ultra, but even the businesses you mentioned should look at the EVGA 8800 GTX KO ACS3 and the 8800 Ultra as competitors on equal ground. Sure a company might not mind paying more money for more performance, but it is hard to understand why a company would needlessly pay more money for somethign that offers the same performance as a competing part.

I do agree that a lot of people are making a bigger deal out of this than they need to. The market is still driven by supply and demand afterall. If people are smart enough to realize that NVIDIA has priced their hardware too high, the price will come down. We certainly won't pass up the opportunity to educate people about the fact that the 8800 Ultra is an incredibly bad value with other retail graphics cards performing the same and costing much less.

Well I was excited when I woke up this morning to find reviews on the 8800 Ultra but after reading this I'm very disappointed. All Nvidia did was overclock a 8800 GTX and are now calling it a 8800 Ultra while trying to sell it for $200-$300 more. It performs a few percent better but not enough to be noticeable in a game.

I guess they decided a few people would buy it and it's not like Nvidia is losing money making them, the 8800 Ultras are the same as the 8800GTX just factory clocked a little higher. I guess as a business move it makes sense, make a little extra money while not having to change your product around at all except for a clock increase.

8800GTS 320MB is still the best deal, come on AMD/ATI I hope their benchmarks for the R600 won't be as disappointing as this, what I've seen from DailyTech on the R600 it looks like Nvidia could be holding the crown for quite some time.
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Theres also a similar spec'd BFG card at a lower price than the quoted eVGA. I'm all for reccomending eVGA in a buyers guide, but this article actually appears biased by leaving out other (cheaper) cards in favor of a single eVGA. Reply

Nice job on the review, including an overclocked gtx really shows just what a joke the 8800u is. However, I suggest that in your future articles you keep the colors consistent between the cards in your resolution scaling graph. It's confusing if a card is shown in yellow on one graph, and then the same card is blue in the next graph. Reply

...because you can't purchase an E6600 that's overclocked to 2.9GHz out of the box, with the warranty intact. The extreme CPUs are actually marketable to people who want the overclocked performance without doing it on their own and voiding the warranty.

We can already do that with EVGA's overclocked 8800GTX that performs at about 2% less than the Ultra and costs 22% less. It does that right out of the box and keeps its warranty at that performance level. Reply

perhaps to some ... and the ferrari analogy isn't quite right there either -- ferrari's actually have something to offer on the road/track, and they can be a good investment as well ... perhaps I need to rework that sentence.

the thing is, there are enthusiasts out there who will buy the 8800 GTX for it's performance. but with cards more like the ultra, we will see fewer people buy the card for any quality/performance advantage. a higher ratio of status seekers will buy it as opposed to real enthusiasts.

certainly the hardcore overclockers will be interested. and it'll be interesting to see what A3 G80 silicon can do when strapped to a phase change cooling system. but that market isn't very large. Reply

I would like to see the power usage numbers on this card since part of the A3 revision was supposed to help reduce power consumption.

I agree this is a big step in price for a small step in performance, but that is just like high end CPU's. The interesting question is, when EVGA and others come out with overclocked Ultra cards, how much faster will those be than their overclocked GTX's? If they can get a 10% lead for $200 more, I bet they will get some takers. Reply

we don't usually test power with reference boards. we'll certainly look at it when we get our hands on a retail product though.

nvidia is reporting lower power usage with the 8800 Ultra that ammounts to just a couple watts less than the 8800 GTX. While this is good for a higher performance part, it's nothing to write home about. Reply

I completely understand this review's conclusions, but I can't help but notice...

If the reviewers have agreed that the only point of this card is its ability to be overclocked, and given that they overclocked it (and proved that it has more headroom than the GTX), why are there no performance results for the overclocked card? Just because retail cards may behave differently? Surely they'd overclock *somewhat*, so the extra sample point (even with a "YMMV" by it) would be useful.

Fine, overclocking ability varies on a card-by-card basis, but if the sole point of this card (whether nVidia market it as such or not) is to be ramped up from the default clock, it seems strange not to have shown how much performance this might have provided.

Clearly the Ultra at default clock isn't economical compared with an overclocked GTX (no news there - a lot of overclocked devices are more economical than slower "higher end" parts), but if this card is really capable of running at higher speeds, that still makes it the fastest card available - and it would be nice to know by how much. Maybe nVidia will change their minds about the default clock (and remove a few Ultras from the production line) if the 2900XTX turns out to be faster than expected.

thats is way over priced for the gain (or loss) in performance I see here. I just hope that the test bed (which I doubt) is bottlenecking the speeds. But the cost for a BFG water cooled (pre-installed) 8800GTX is high 750-900 so this isn't that far out of the ball park for what some people will pay (I'm not one of em). I'm excited to see what ATI(AMD) is going to step up with as I'm not too impressed with the new parts we've seen from Nvidia this past month. I'm not a brand fan boy but a performance fan boy - someone please release something to wow the living $#!* outta me again Reply

quote:We are all for higher performance, and we don't mind higher prices. But it is ridiculous to charge an exorbitant amount of money for something that doesn't offer any benefit over a product already on the market. $830 isn't the issue. In fact, we would love to see a graphics card worth $830. The 8800 Ultra just isn't it.

Look guys, $830 for a graphics card is F'n WAY too much. I do not care what you say, how you try and justify the cost, whatever, the cost is too much, even if the card performed much better. This just goes to show, how greedy these people are, much like the memory comcpanies who have finaly comes down to a semi reasonable price.

We the people, and you the reviewers, need to let these greedy a-holes know that these prices are way too much, and that we will not except them. Until then, you, myself, and everyone else can exspect to pay out the rear for crappy stuff, such as this. Reply

There are people who buy 2 8800GTX cards to run SLI, so some are willing to spend that much on video. This card just doesn't offer the performance to go with the price.

I know in the past Anandtech has not been big fans of SLI, but assuming the price on the 8800 Ultra does stay at $830+, it would be interesting to see tests of it vs 2 8800GTS cards in SLI, as price would be similar. Reply

Unfortunately due to some issues of SLI scaling or driver immaturity according to the TechReport 8800 GTS 640 SLI is for the most part inferior to 8800 Ultra. :( The only thing SLI is better at is Oblivion. Reply

you mean, there are some people out there with more money, than brains, right ? I am not putting you, or anyone else down on this subject (well maybe the manufactuers for trying to pull a fast one), but this is so freeking obvious, I figured I better say something before someone else does. I also understand that any company out there, is in business to make money, first and foremost, but come on . . .this is blatantly obvious greed.

Anyhow, appearantly, my father teaching me, when I was young, to always try and respect everyone, and not to cheat,steal from anyone (especially a customer), was wrong, because obviously, everyone now days just seems to be interrested in money only, a screw the morals attitude. Lie, cheat, steal your way into becomming a big business, and if these three methods do not work, what next ? These common tactics practiced by the PC markets big OEMs is no better than the average theif on the street mugging you. As a matter of a fact, I say it is worse, because at least everyone should be able to figure out the theifs true intentions are, and call them what they really are.

Ask yourself why, not two months ago, you were paying $250 usd + for an average 2GB DDR2 6400 kit. Take a look at the currect prices, and wonder again(a hint: it is hovering right around ~$100 usd right now).

Anyhow, prices like these, and higher are to be expected if we never see another ATI(AMD), and nVidia, has shown me their true colors. Reply

Yeah because they are twisting your arm really hard so that you buy this and it hurts badly. There is a big difference between a mugging and an offer to buy something, it's called coercion. Look it up sometime. Reply

There is another word, it is called 'monopoly', look it up sometime, and hope it does not come into play here any time soon, because we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Ask yourself why this year, prices have jumped roughly 250%-300%, when years past, prices for graphics cards climbed gradualy. There is something called 'fair market value', and then there is blatant robbery. Maybe the cards are actually worth this much ? Given the benchmark results, they are not.

Yeah, whatever . . . right ? Anyhow, this kind of 'tactics' on nVidias behalf has made me re-think my potition on who to buy graphics cards from, and nVidia better hope ATI does not come out with anything near what they have, because they will lose market share, the way I see things. Reply

Well, personally, I wouldn't consider spending any more than $150 on a video card. I don't play games, so the only reason I bought something as good as the 7600GT I have is that a) it was $90 after rebate, b) I wanted to be sure I had enough power to drive my 1920x1200 display without any issues, and c) i didn't want a card stealing from my system memory. Now I understand people who are into gaming and want to spend their money on it, after all some would probably say I'm crazy to spend $1400 on a lens for my camera. So if nVidia (or AMD, or whoever) released a $830 video card that was 25% better than anything else out there, I'd be fine with it. I wouldn't buy it, but wouldn't consider it a dumb move for those who want one.

Also, I don't think they are stealing from their customers. Assuming you are buying based on the specs as-delivered (and not based on possible overclocking headroom) then you know what you are getting, and are willing to pay more for it. It's not like they took preorders promising something much better and then delivered the current configuration.

I have no idea why RAM jumped up to the high of around Christmastime (maybe high demand, maybe another factory fire, who knows), but now that a second 2GB kit to match what is in my system is $102, I'm highly tempted to get more. Reply

But anywho, I completely agree with you. I just built a complete rig for a buddy of mine for barely more than that. And I mean, complete, he needed everything from monitor (Samsung 941BW) to keyboard and mouse and speakers(7.1). Core 2 Duo based (E6320 on a Gigabyte DS3, 2 gigs of Corsair DDR2 800, 320GB hdd, X1900 GT). All for under $1100 USD after rebates. Not a gaming rig for sure, but a respectable system nonetheless. Even if I had the money I wouldn't see any justification in buying an $830 card that offered only marginal gains over it's less expensive sibling. Reply

Please look up exotic car prices. You will find you do NOT get an 80% return on anything other than a few tiny examples of cars that were generally unavailable at the time of their initial offerings. Also note that when you take advantage of the gouging to non-established customers of exotic cars, the depreciation will often be even more than adds would appear to indicate, as the orginal paid-for price may have been much higher than MSRP. Reply

the "few tiny examples" are the ones that appreciate, such as the Enzo. If you were one of the 399 that bought one from the factory for around $650k, you now have a car worth over a million, and likely to keep heading up as dumb comedians crash them. Something relatively common though, such as a 355 from 10 years ago, is still worth over 50% of new (assuming you bought one through a dealer, not paid extra to get one immediately). Even NSXs from the early 90s are still worth $25-35k. And judging by the current market, even in 20-30 years, the Ferrari will still have some value because it is a Ferrari, independant of actual performance relative to current models. Any computer hardware, unless extremely limited production so that it is a collectors item, will be essentially worthless by the time it is 3 or 4 generations old. Reply

Yeah it is a trophy card. They had to do it for good PR. Now if anyone actually buys it, I guess that's a bonus for Nvidia. There are a good number of people in the world with more money than they know what to do with. This is for those people who buy $300 shirts regularly or don't think twice before dropping $20,000 on a sofa. Reply

this kind of b.s. from a company will mean i will probably never buy another nvidia gpu, and after my next build another m/b based on their chipset. this is a complete joke and i can't wait for amd/ati to put out something soon. the x1950x is a good card but needs a big brother that is dx10.

this has got to be the dumbest thing i have seen since the killernic...this move should even make the fanboys question their allegiance. Reply

You are the fanboy for getting so riled up over this and thinking that you shouldn't buy Nvidia's currently superior products because of it. If you have $300 to spend on a video card, there is nothing that beats an 8800GTS now. What does Nvidia releasing a BS $830 card have to do with the excellent price/performance you have been able to get from their other products since late last year.

The dumbest thing I have seen is people who will wait to buy something only from a specific company to get poorer performance for their dollar. It is the same kind of sucker who would buy the 8800GTX Ultra. Reply

This kind of BS happens because ATI can't come out with anything to beat the 8800gtx, even 6+ months after it was released. Nvidia is price gouging because they really have no competition. The R600 is a complete joke, hopefully the coming reviews will shed some light on why. Reply

Also, the 266 Mhz more and the "Extreme" branding means that the silicon tested higher. People seem to not want to place value on that, but then they get pissed if they're the one that buys the cheap part that will NOT o'clock. If you opt for the budget version, just realize that its a gamble. The "Extreme" parts are essentially geared towards o'clocking and should oclock.

For example, getting my QX6700 to 3.2 was effortless and 3.46 required only a minor voltage bump. On water and with a bit more voltage I can do 3.7 but it gets hotter than I would like so I keep it at 3.46. Many people do better than I with the QX6700. This is ALL just multiplier also... NO FSB o'clock so NO need for better RAM and a mobo that isnt picky with FSB o'clocking.

personally, I think there is a LOT of value in all of that. People who dont can buy the cheaper part and feel the Extreme is a "ripoff".

The QX6700 vs. Q6600 is NOT analgous to this situation with the 8800GTX Ultra. NVidia is being ridiculous. Reply

Let this be a lesson kids, buy an ATI card, and an AMD processor or two.

Even the low end stuff, for your mom or your kids machine.

The reason why the CPU market is so awesome right now is because intel felt real pressure from amd and they had to respond with a superior product at lower prices or face a continual market share loss.

We now see nvidia's true colors, the sky's the limit on the prices, and they quite surely, could have released a product with far more performance, at a lower price point, had AMD been simply been putting pressure on them.

If anyone buys this card, you are wholeheartedly supporting $1000 dollar retail graphics cards, that will increase in performance incrementally over the years instead of quantum leaps, at a fair, and still profitable cost...

I'm not buying an AMD processor or graphics card simply because they offer competition to Intel or Nvidia. I will buy an AMD product when they offer simple superior performance to the competition again. At the $300 I paid for my 8800GTS, there is nothing that comes close in performance for the money.

Don't tell me that ATI didn't try some insane pricing when they had the lead. Reply

AMD would love to join NVIDIA on this. Don't forget about the FX series of processors or the 4x4 program.

Rather than pressure companies to build hardware that doesn't cost much, let's encourage them to build hardware that's worth the price they put on it.

There is a market for high end hardware. There is no reason NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel shouldn't satisfy that market. But there's no point in charging $830 for performance we can get for $650 just because people will buy it. Reply

Great point. Yeah, lets be a charity for AMD. Come on. Where are these people coming from??? When AMD offers a competitive part again for a decent price, I will buy from them again. If Intel starts offering parts I feel are not worth it, I wont buy from them.

I have 8800GTX in SLI and am running at 629/1000 and these are just plain old air cooled GTX parts. NVidia is nuts on this Ultra. It wont sell well at this price and they will either have to put more value or drop this down to regular GTX pricing.

THe market adjusts itself and doesnt need political statements from ideological consumers to drive it. Of course if you choose to spend your money that way, more power to you! One could argue that it keeps AMD weak though. If they know they have a comfortable revenue stream for substandard parts, the can rest. Remember... they rose to challenge Intel from NOTHING, not from a flow of "charity" revenue. Reply

I think they are following Murphy's Law: It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. They made changes at minimal cost to a product, slap a high price on it, and see if anyone is dumb enough to bite. When sales numbers drop off, they cut the price, and probably end up closer to $700 where the performance should leave it.

I don't blame nVidia for making it, I just laugh at anyone who buys it. Reply